Marvel sold over $1.6 million retail worth of Amazing Spider-Man #700 to comic stores in December, the top dollar comic in recent memory. Sell-in of over 200,000 copies was supported by an extensive variant program, including numerous "exceed orders," 1:100, 1:150, 1:200 variants, and at a $7.99 retail price, the dollars piled up fast. Extensive publicity about the storyline helped make this a major event book. The lead-in book, #699, appears to have unfilled demand; #698 sold more than #699 (both #698 and #699 have second printings already released).

Marvel also had a big hit with Avengers #1 at over 186,000 copies, but the scale of the dollars wasn’t even close, with less than half the dollars of the #1 book.

The books in DC's "Death of a Family" event were up and down: Batman, for example, was down around 5%, but all of the tie-in titles saw some pretty substantial bumps-- Detective Comics #15 (+31,835), Batman and Robin (+14,335), Batgirl #15 (+2127), Nightwing #15 (+23,687), Teen Titans #15 (+28,962), and Red Hood and the Outlaws #15 (+26,393). Also of note, DC's Justice League (Part 1 of the "Throne of Atlantis" storyline crossing over with Aquaman) saw an uptick of 2% while Aquaman #15 saw orders increase over 30%.

The Walking Dead Vol. 1 mustered nearly 10,000 sales out of the direct market in December, with gifts of the first volume a great sign for the future of the franchise.

Here are ICv2's estimates of the direct market North American sales of the "Top 25" comics sold through Diamond Comic Distributors in December of 2012: